


The Book of Forgetting

by thinlizzy2



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Can't stop thinking about it - the time they kissed, Inapppropriate use of magic, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-12-14 08:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21012614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/pseuds/thinlizzy2
Summary: "There are holes in my memory. And they correspond to the dates you have written in this book. Did you do something to me, Crowley? Did something happen on these days that you don't want me to remember?"Aziraphale finds Crowley's secret journal, and learns some things that the demon has been keeping from him for thousands of years.He also learns that no one can deceive him quite as much as himself.





	The Book of Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstroGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/gifts).

Aziraphale sighed as he closed Crowley's kitchen cabinets in defeat. He didn't exactly expect the demon to keep his flat stocked with Belgian cocoa and handmade marshmallows, but he didn't think a simple cup of tea would have been too much to ask. For a moment, he allowed himself to long for the well-stocked provisions cupboard at his bookshop and then he banished the thought from his mind. Crowley had been right; switching immediately back into their old bodies and lives would have been a sure-fire way to arouse suspicion from Heaven and Hell that they'd been duped. It was far better to continue pretending to be each other for a few days, until they were a bit less likely to be spied upon. But he couldn't help missing the creature comforts of his own home while trapped in Crowley's minimalist, and frankly unwelcoming, living space.

He missed Crowley too, far more than he had imagined that he would. Before the almost-apocalypse, it hadn't been uncommon for them to spend longer stretches of time apart. But he'd grown accustomed to the demon's presence, and it was hard now to be without him. But, for the moment, he couldn't do anything about that either.

The worst part, by far, was having nothing to read. Crowley, somehow, just didn't seem to keep books at his home. Aziraphale never would have thought it possible, but it really did seem to be the case. There was music, to be sure, but very little that suited Aziraphale's tastes. And there was a complicated home entertainment system that Aziraphale had tried his best to work out, but he couldn't begin to guess Crowley's password and, to be honest, he didn't feel like watching a movie or a television programme.

He wanted to _read._

In desperation, he scanned Crowley's shelves one last time. And there, buried among various musical recordings with art featuring a number of distasteful looking individuals, he found a small miracle waiting. The book was leather-bound and possibly centuries old, but it was still a book and that was all that mattered. Eagerly, Aziraphale settled into one of Crowley's absurdly hard and unpadded chairs and opened the text.

It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. The pages were covered in an unruly scrawl in an assortment of coloured inks, but he quickly worked out that this was no work of fiction. This was Crowley's journal, as unlikely as it might have seemed, and no matter how bored Aziraphale was he had no business reading it. He was just about to put it away and return to his unsatisfying wandering about, when his eyes caught on his own name near the top of the page. 

**Aziraphale, July 3rd 1852, Madrid.**

His brow furrowed. Had he been in Madrid on that third of July? He tried to remember, but he honestly couldn't recall it. That was... odd. He didn't exactly have a photographic memory as humans understood the concept, but his powers of recollection were far superior to that of any mortal. It was very unlikely that he would lose a full day, especially one that Crowley had deemed worth recording.

Concerned, he moved down to the next line. **Aziraphale, September 8th 1854, London, raining.**

He drew another blank. It was perfectly possible that he had been in London on that rainy September day. He could clearly remember being in the city on both September 7th and September 9th of that year, and the weather had indeed been chilly and wet. But the eighth itself was a perfect hole in his memory, vanished from his mind as if it had never existed. 

He scanned the rest of the pages in alarm. Every entry started with his name, a date and a place. Sometimes that was all that was there, but other times Crowley added more detail. **Third time this year**, read one entry, and Aziraphale couldn't even begin to imagine what it was that was occurring with such regularly in 1897. Another was annotated with the word **mittens** and Aziraphale couldn't fathom what that was about; surely Crowley wasn't keeping track of his fashion choices! But he did remember owning an especially warm pair of mittens in that particular winter, soft lamb's wool, hand-knitted and thick. Every single entry named a day that he could no longer remember, days that were so well-erased that he hadn't even noticed their absences before. 

The last entry was written in modern blue ballpoint. **Aziraphale, December 24th 2018, Edinburgh, mulled wine**. The angel tried as hard as he could, but no matter how much effort he put in the previous Christmas Eve was a memory that just wouldn't come.

Crowley was worried at first when Aziraphale called him, frightened that their scheme had been uncovered. His fear quickly turned to annoyance when he realised that wasn't the case. "Why are you calling me then, angel? We talked about this; we need to lie low for a couple of-"

"Your diary." Aziraphale interrupted him. "Your diary that's all about _me_."

There was a long silence on the other side of the line. Then Crowley groaned softly. "I'm on my way. Just... stay there. Please."

When Crowley arrived, still wearing Aziraphale's body, he looked as scared as he had when faced with the anger of all the angels and demons combined. But Aziraphale wasn't in any mood to be sympathetic. He pushed the incriminating journal at his friend. "What have you done to me?"

Crowley hugged it protectively against his chest, and if Aziraphale had been less angry than he was he probably would have found such affection for a book endearing. As it was, it just annoyed him. "What do you know?"

"There are holes in my memory. And they correspond to the dates you have written in this book. Did you do something to me, Crowley? Did something happen on these days that you don't want me to remember?" All he could imagine was that Crowley had betrayed their agreement somehow, on those missing days, or that he had tried to push Aziraphale into doing more work for Hell than he'd wanted to do. And even the idea of that sort of betrayal.was making his heart ache.

Even though he was wearing Crowley's glasses, Aziraphale could still feel his friend's eyes boring into his. He made himself hold the demon's gaze. He couldn't afford to back down. He needed answers.

The last thing he was expecting was for Crowley to suddenly grab at him. So he was unprepared when his friend quickly closed the distance between them, his mouth crushing against Aziraphale's as he clutched the angel against himself. Aziraphale gasped, too stunned to pull away, as Crowley licked his way into the angel's mouth, kissing past his defenses with a skill that had to be born from experience. Aziraphale wasn't sure what was more shocking, the kiss itself, his body's startling surrender to it or the fact that this whole situation felt - undeniably - familiar.

He tried to tell himself that it was Crowley's body that was responding. It was Crowley who wanted this, not Aziraphale himself. But the warmth and wanting spread from his borrowed body to his soul and even if he could and would lie to Crowley, he didn't think he could deceive himself.

"That happened." Crowley pulled away and his voice sounded more defeated than Aziraphale had ever heard it before. "That's what happened."

"You kissed me " Aziraphale couldn't believe it.

There were tears glinting in the eyes that Aziraphale had loaned to Crowley in good faith. "Just had to have it one last time."

Aziraphale was more shocked than he could ever remember being. "You kissed me, and then you erased it from my memory. All those times."

"No!" There were no 's' sounds in that short word, but somehow Crowley still managed to hiss it out. "No. _You_ kissed _me_! Every time! And then you went and changed your mind - every time again - or else you would have, and I..." The demon sagged, as if suddenly defeated. "I couldn't bear to lose you, angel. I didn't have any choice."

Aziraphale stared at him in disbelief. "You can't possibly expect me to believe that! You're honestly saying that on some random day in 1852 I just started kissing you and I've never stopped? That doesn't make any sense."

"No. Not in 1852." Crowley sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Wait here."

Aziraphale knew that he probably should have followed Crowley to his bedroom to prevent any further trickery, but the act of entering that room now felt far too intimate. So he waited in the sitting room, listening to the faint banging sounds of furniture being moved, and then Crowley returned.

The demon's arms were full. There was another leather-bound book similar to the one Aziraphale had found, but there were other documents as well. Folio pages, scrolls, papyrus, even a couple of stone tablets. Crowley dumped his burden unceremoniously on the coffee table. "It's been going on for a long long time, Aziraphale."

Aziraphale stared at the gathered evidence. A part of him just wanted to miracle them away, to deny that any of this was possible, but deep inside he knew he needed to discover the truth.

"I have to look at this." He opened up the other book and found that it was filled with content similar to the first. He had no idea what this meant, for him or for Crowley or for the friendship he had only recently realised meant so much to him. "You never should have played with my mind, Crowley. I need to know about this." His voice was shaky and he couldn't fix it. "I need time."

Crowley nodded jerkily. "All right."

"And I want my body back." Aziraphale couldn't bear the closeness of occupying Crowley's body for one moment longer. "Never mind the risk."

He felt the hot whoosh of air that accompanied a demonic miracle all around him and in the next moment he was back in his own body, behind the counter of his bookshop. At first he thought that Crowley had lashed out in anger, but then he saw the clutter of Crowley's documents sitting on his countertop. No matter what, Crowley had honoured his wishes on this. So, with great trepidation, he picked up the nearest book and began to read.

***

It took several hours for Aziraphale to read through the various pieces. There, in a mix of modern languages languages and some that were lost to history, was a whole history of his own that he had forgotten. It was a history that had been taken from him, and yet it had also been preserved. Aziraphale did his best to work backwards in time, ending with the stone tablets that indicated the earliest part of his relationship with Crowley.

It was the last tablet that broke him. The top was intricately carved, with great care and artistry, the ancient Greek symbols beautifully wrought. There was no rote recording of dates here; instead, this was the very poetry of Crowley's heart. Before whatever had happened that that had broken it.

**He came. Sweet God and all the others, Aziraphale has come to me. I tasted his lips. I felt his grace, and here I record my joy. Thus begins my rise. Thus dawns my love. Sweet love, sweet angel. At last.**

Aziraphale gasped out loud, shocked by the raw emotion he held in his hands. He flipped the tablet over and felt the tears rise in his eyes. The carving here was fierce and furious, a startling contrast to the front. Here, chips of rock had been knocked away by the force of the engraver's fury.

**Never mind. Bastard. Stupid bastard thinking I could ever deserve him. No choice. Damned fool.**

Aziraphale swallowed hard against the sorrow in his throat. "Oh, Crowley." He ran his hand over the carved symbols. "You aren't a fool."

There was that rush of air again, and then Crowley was there. "I meant you."

Aziraphale leapt to his feet and glared at him. "You've been watching me?"

"Of course," Crowley confirmed. "And I meant you, you damn fool. Although I'm a fool too. I let you keep coming back, time and time again, for thousands of years. I knew you'd never want it to keep happening. I knew you'd never properly love me, but I kept letting it happen." He gave a shuddering sob. "I never stopped you. Not once. I just let it happen and wiped it away and then let it happen again. We'd have a nice meal, or a particularly good evening at the theatre, or just see each other on the streets after a few decades had gone by and..." He shook his head. "I don't even know why I resisted going back to Hell as hard as I did, angel. You and I managed to create a lovely little personal Hell for me right here on Earth. And you know what, Aziraphale? Welcome to it."

"You never even gave me a chance!" Aziraphale had no idea he was going to say that until the words were out. "Not since the first time! You never let me not change my mind, or change it back! Crowley, how could you have such little _faith_ in me?"

Crowley was staring at him like he'd grown a second head. "Wait. Are you saying... you'd have actually _stayed?_ Aziraphale, if this is a joke, or some kind of twisted revenge, it's the cruellest thing you've ever done to me."

"I don't know." Aziraphale admitted. "I've never had the chance to know."

Crowley stalked around the counter and yanked Aziraphale close, pulling at the lapels of his jacket so that they were standing face to face. "You had that chance in Greece. And you used it to break my sodding heart."

There was only a breath of space between them, and Aziraphale's body knew that this was nothing new. Every instinct he had told him to lean forward and close that distance, but he made himself hold back. "I want to trust you, Crowley."

it was as if those words had drained all the anger from his friend. Crowley rested his forehead against Aziraphale's. "I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have mucked about in your memory, and I'm sorry. Fuck, I am so sorry. But I couldn't stand to lose you, angel. I couldn't stand to let you remember because then you'd have stayed away from me, just like you did that first time, and I'd rather be smited off into oblivion than have that happen again. Because I love you. Heaven and Hell, I love you and-"

Aziraphale gave in to his instincts then, surging forward and pressing his lips against Crowley's. As far as he could recall it was only his second kiss ever, and yet he knew exactly what to do, pulling the demon into his embrace, keeping one hand at his back to ground him and using the other to wipe away the tears that trickled out from under his sunglasses, deepening the kiss until it felt like the entire world was being born all over again in the place where their faces were joined.

Crowley moaned when Aziraphale finally pulled away. "Fuck, I always forget how good you've got at that. Practice makes perfect, I suppose. Look, let me just-" Aziraphale tensed, expecting Crowley to try to wipe the memory away, but instead the demon just gathered up Aziraphale's hands in his own. He lifted them up to his lips. "Just need to keep touching you a bit right now, okay? How do you feel?"

"Scared," Aziraphale confessed. This whole thing between them had been growing for thousands of years, and he was coming into it so late. "This is so big. Isn't it, Crowley?"

"Huge." Crowley kissed Aziraphale's hands one more time, and then released them. "I'm glad you know now, to be honest. Having to carry it all alone, it's been hard.

It must have been. Aziraphale could see the weariness etched on Crowley's features. Why had he never thought to question that before. "You love me? Really?"

"You must have known." In spite of the situation, Crowley smiled fondly at him. "On some level, you must have figured it out. Just like I did."

A spasm of panic seized Aziraphale's chest. He fought it back. "What, exactly, do you think you figured out?"

Crowley's laugh held no joy at all. "Think about how long it took me to talk you into a mutually beneficial arrangement. You're not an impulsive being, angel. "He gestured at all the evidence strewed around them. "At least not on this level." He cupped Aziraphale's face in his palms. "Look, if you want to run, I won't stop you. And I won't..." He gestured at the records of their lives that Aziraphale had been reading. "I won't do that. Not unless you want me to."

"I'm not going to run." Aziraphale shook his head. "Like I said, I'm scared. But I've found out that the best way to deal with being scared is to work through it. With you. I may not have known it in Athens, all those years ago, but I know it now." He gave a nervous little laugh. "I may have known it in 1852 too, if you'd waited to find out."

Crowley was looking at him with the same disbelief that Aziraphale remembered from the walls of Eden. "You're not going to leave?"

Aziraphale confirmed it. "I'm not."

"Not later either? The first time, it took a couple of days but then you said you couldn't... Angel, if you're going to go, please go now. I can bear that. But I can't bear to hope again, and then to lose you."

Aziraphale gave the matter some serious thought. He owed Crowley that much and he knew it. Because Crowley loved him. It was unbelievably believable. Apparently he really and truly loved him, and had done so for quite some time. The idea was dizzying.

And Aziraphale found, with what was perhaps a very surprising lack of surprise, that he wanted quite badly to offer Crowley the assurances he was seeking. Because... he loved Crowley. The demon was right. Just allowing himself to think those words made a warm and tender thing unfold in Aziraphale's chest, and he gasped at the readiness if it. Yes, he very likely had loved Crowley for thousands of years, with a love that had kept making him risk everything he held dear over and over again.

But the thought of all of this was almost as terrifying as it was thrilling, and the reality was even more so. Aziraphale didn't want to make a promise he couldn't keep. It seemed he'd been doing that for dozens of centuries, bit by bit and kiss by kiss, and Crowley deserved better than another convenient lie.

"I can promise you that I'm going to try," he said at last, hoping it would be enough. "This is new to me, Crowley. You have to understand that. But I want to be with you. I want that more than I want not to be scared anymore. I'll need time, and I'll need us to be honest with each other. But I'm going to try, Darling, if you're willing to have the faith to let me."

And then Crowley was kissing him again, and Aziraphale had no idea how he'd ever managed to walk away from this kind of perfection in the first place.

"You owe me more of this," he whispered against Crowley's neck as the demon held him tightly. "You can remember hundreds of kisses that I've lost, and I want them all back. With interest. And any other details you've erased."

"It was only ever kissing." Crowley licked the shell of Aziraphale's ear, and the angel felt his knees weakening. "I never let it go further, not knowing - thinking - I was going to lose you again."

Aziraphale let his hand slide under Crowley's shirt and savored the heat of his skin. He stroked the delicate bones of Crowley's spine and felt the demon shiver in response. He would have tucked his tail between his legs and come back to Crowley all of those times, if given the chance. He was certain of that. Who could walk away from this forever? "Then maybe it's time to make some memories", he suggested. "For both of us?"

And the fierce kiss Crowley gave him in return promised the first of many nights to remember.


End file.
